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THE COUNTY REGIMENT
(iovcniur HiKkiiigliain
THE
COUNTY REGIMENT
A SKETCH
OF THE SECOND REGIMENT OF
CONNECTICUT VOLUNTEER HEAVY ARTILLERY,
ORIGINALLY THE NINETEENTH VOLUNTEER
INFANTRY, IN THE CIVIL WAR
BY
DUDLEY LANDON VAILL
LITCHFIELD COUNTY
UNIVERSITY CLUB
MCMVIII
^--«iwM "S-
a-
h. • >-
Ut-r-'-SV af CONGRESS
iwf. 0' 'Mfs Rec.e'veci
JUN 6 la08
CMSS/^ Me. No.
2.0597^
cuwr A.
Copyright, 1908, by
Dudley L. Vaill
PAR AVANCE
This volume is one of a series published under
the auspices of the Litchfield County University
Club, and in accordance with a proposition
made to the club by one of its members,
Mr. Carl Stoeckel, of Norfolk, Connecticut.
HOVV^ARD WiLLISTON CaRTER,
Secretary.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Governor Buckingham Frontispiece
Rev. Hiram Eddy facing page 7
Presentation of Colors, September loth, 1 862
The first encampment in Virginia
Fort Ellsworth, near Alexandria, May, 1863
In the Defences. Guard mount ....
General Sedgwick
The first battle
Colonel Wessells
Colonel Kellogg
Colonel Mackenzie
Colonel Hubbard
Monument at Arlington
10
14
19
23
26
3S
47
61
76
84
98
Vll
PREFATORY
For those who dwell within its borders, or
whose ancestral roots are bedded among its
hills, the claims of Litchfield County to distinc-
tion are many and of many kinds. In these
latter days it has become notable as the home of
certain organizations of unique character and
high purpose, which flourish under circum-
stances highly exceptional, and certainly no less
highly appreciated.
It is as part of the work of one of these that
there is commemorated in this volume an or-
ganization of an earlier day, one distinctively
of the county, in no way unique in its time, but
IX
PREFATORY
of the highest purpose — the regiment gathered
here for the national defence in the Civil War.
The county's participation in that defence
was by no means restricted to the raising of a
single regiment. Quite as many, perhaps more,
of its sons were enrolled in other commands as
made up what was known originally as the
Nineteenth Connecticut Volunteer Infantry;
but in that body its organized effort as a county
found expression, and it was proud to let the
splendid record of that body stand as typical of
its sacrifices for the preservation of the Union.
Though the history of that regiment's career
has been written in full detail, the purpose of
this slight repetition of the story needs no
apology. There is sufficient justification in its
intrinsic interest, to say nothing of a personal
interest in its members, men who gave such
proofs of their quality, and whose survivors are
still our neighbors in probably every town in
the county.
PREFATORY
There is also something more than mere in-
terest to be gained, in considering historical
matters of such immensity as the Civil War,
in giving the attention to some minute sec-
tion of the whole, such as the account of
individual experiences, or of the career of a
particular regiment such as this; it is of
great value as bringing an adequate realization
of the actual bearing of the great events of
that time upon the people of the time. The
story of a body of Litchfield County men, such
men as we see every day, drawn from such
homes as we know all about us, is a potent help
to understanding in what way and with what
aspects these great historical movements bore
upon the people of the country, for the expe-
rience of this group of towns and their sons fur-
nished but one small instance of what was
borne, infinitely magnified, throughout the
nation.
It will readily appear that the subject might
xi
PREFATORY
furnish material for a notable volume. In the
present case nothing is possible save a brief
sketch of the matter, made up chiefly, as will be
seen, of citations from the published history of
the regiment, and from such other sources of
information as were easily accessible. Among
the latter must be noted the records of the Regi-
mental Association, to which access was had
through the courtesy of its secretary, D. C. Kil-
bourn, Esq., of Litchfield, and his assistance, as
well as that of H. W. Wessells, Esq., of Litch-
field, to both of whom the securing of most
of the illustrations used is due, is gratefully
acknowledged.
xu
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
N spite of the labors of unnumbered
chroniclers, it is not easy, if in-
deed it is possible, for us of this
later generation to realize ade-
quately the great patriotic upris-
ing of the war times.
It began in the early days of 1861 with the
assault on Fort Sumter, which, following a
long and trying season of uncertainty, fur-
nished the sudden shock that resolved the
doubts of the wavering and changed the opin-
ions of the incredulous. Immediately there
swept over all the northern states a wave of in-
tense national feeling, attended by scenes of
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
patriotic and confident enthusiasm more noisy
than far-sighted, and there was a resulting host
of volunteers, who went forth for the service of
ninety days with the largest hopes, and propor-
tionate ignorance of the crisis which had come
to the nation. Of these Connecticut furnished
more than her allotted share, and Litchfield
County a due proportion.
The climax of this excited period was sup-
plied by the battle of Bull Run. There was
surprise, and almost consternation, at the first
news of this salutary event, but quickly follow-
ing, a renewed rally of patriotic feeling, less
excited but more determined, and with a clearer
apprehension of the actual situation. The en-
listment of volunteers for a longer term had
been begun, and now went forward briskly for
many months; regiment after regiment was en-
rolled, equipped, and sent southward, until, in
the spring of 1862, the force of this movement
began to spend itself. The national arms had
met with some important successes during the
winter, and a feeling of confidence had arisen
141
A SKETCH
in the invincibility of the Grand Army of the
Potomac, which had been gathering and organ-
izing under General McClellan for what the
impatient country was disposed to think an in-
terminable time. A War Department order in
April, 1862, putting a stop to recruiting for the
armies, added to the confidence, since an easy
inference could be drawn from it, and the North
settled down to await with high hopes the re-
sults of McClellan's long expected advance.
Then came the campaign on the Peninsula.
At first there was but meagre news and a multi-
tude of conflicting rumors about its fierce battles
and famous retreat, but in the end the real-
ization of the failure of this mighty effort. To
the country it was a disappointment literally
stunning in its proportions; but now at length
there was revealed the magnitude of the task
confronting the nation, and again there sprang
up the determination, grim and intense, to
strain every nerve for the restoration of the
Union.
The President's call for three hundred thou-
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
sand men to serve "for three years or the war"
was proclaimed to this state by Governor Buck-
ingham on July 3rd (1862), and evidence was
at once forthcoming that it was sternly heeded
by the people. To fill Connecticut's quota
under this call, it was proposed that regiments
should be raised by counties. A convention was
promptly called, which met in Litchfield on
July 22nd; delegates from every town in the
county were in attendance, representatives of
all shades of political opinion and individual
bias, but the conclusions of the meeting were
unanimously reached. It was resolved that
Litchfield County should furnish an entire regi-
ment of volunteers, and that Leverett W.
Wessells, at that time Sheriff, should be recom-
mended as its commander.
Immediate steps were taken to render this
determination effective; the Governor promptly
accepted the recommendation as to the colo-
nelcy, recruiting officers were designated to
secure enlistments, bounties voted by the dif-
ferent towns as proposed by the county meeting,
[6]
Rc\ . Mir.iin 1-',JJ\-
A SKETCH
and the movement thoroughly organized. Al-
though there was a clear appreciation of the
present need, the dozen or more Connecticut
regiments already in the field had drawn a large
number of men from Litchfield County, and
effort was necessary to gain the required enroll-
ment. There had been many opportunities al-
ready for all to volunteer who had any wish to
do so, but the call now came to men who a few
weeks before had hardly dreamed of the need
of their serving; men not to be attracted by the
excitement of a novel adventure, but who recog-
nized soberly the duty that was presenting itself
in this emergency, and men of a very different
stamp from those drawn into the ranks in the
later years of the war by enormous bounties.
It is reasonable to think that pride in the success
of the county's effort was a factor in stimulating
enlistments; announcement that a draft would
be resorted to later was doubtless another. Just
at this time, also, the return from a year's cap-
tivity in the South of the Rev. Hiram Eddy of
Winsted, who had been made prisoner at Bull
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
Run, furnished a powerful advocate to the
cause; night after night he spoke in different
towns, urging the call to service fervently and
with effect.
It is to be noted that at the same time that
this endeavor was being made to fill the ranks
of a regiment for three years' service, recruiting
was going on with almost equal vigor under the
call for men to serve for nine months, and three
full companies were contributed by Litchfield
County to the Twenty-eighth Infantry, which
bore a valiant part in the campaign against Port
Hudson in the following summer. It is possi-
ble to gain some idea of how the great tides
of war were felt throughout the whole land
by imagining the stir and turmoil thus
brought, in the summer of 1862, into this re-
mote and peaceful quarter by the engrossing
struggle.
In the last week in August, the necessary num-
ber of recruits having been secured, the dif-
ferent companies were brought together in
[8]
A SKETCH
Litchfield and marched to the hill overlooking
the town which had been selected as the loca-
tion of Camp Button, named in honor of Lieu-
tenant Henry M. Button, who had fallen in
battle at Cedar Mountain shortly before. Lieu-
tenant Button, the son of Governor Henry
Button, was a graduate of Yale in the class of
1857, and was practising law in Litchfield when
he volunteered for service on the organization
of the Fifth Connecticut Infantry.
The interest and pride of the county in its
own regiment was naturally of the strongest;
the family that had no son or brother or cousin
in its ranks seemed almost the exception, and
Camp Button became at once the goal of a
ceaseless stream of visitors from far and near,
somewhat to the prejudice of those principles
of military order and discipline which had now
to be acquired. The preparation and drill
which employed the scant two weeks spent here
were supervised by Lieutenant-Colonel Kel-
logg, fresh from McClellan's army in Virginia,
and he was afterwards reported as delivering
191
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
the opinion that if there were nine hundred men
in the camp, there were certainly nine thousand
women most of the time.
With all possible haste, preparations were
made for an early departure, but there was op-
portunity for a formal mustering of the regi-
ment in Litchfield, when a fine set of colors was
presented by William Curtis Noyes, Esq., in
behalf of his wife. A horse for the Colonel was
given also, by the Hon. Robbins Battell, saddle
and equipments by Judge Origen S. Seymour,
and a sword by the deputies who had served
under Sheriff Wessells.
On September 15th (1862), the eight hun-
dred and eighty-nine officers and men now mus-
tered as the Nineteenth Connecticut Volunteer
Infantry broke camp, made their first march to
East Litchfield station, and started for the
South, with the entire population for miles
around gathered to witness, not as a holiday
spectacle, but as a farewell, grave with signifi-
cance, the departure of the county regiment.
"In order to raise it," says the regimental his-
A SKETCH
tory, "Litchfield County had given up the
flower of her youth, the hope and pride of hun-
dreds of families, and they had by no means
enlisted to hght for a superior class of men at
home. There was no superior class at home.
In moral qualities, in social worth, in every civil
relation, they were the best that Connecticut
had to give. More than fifty of the rank and
file of the regiment subsequently found their
way to commissions, and at least a hundred
more proved themselves not a whit less compe-
tent or worthy to wear sash and saber if it had
been their fortune."
The regimental officers were : Colonel, Leverett
W. Wessells, Litchfield; lieutenant-colonel,
Elisha S. Kellogg, Derby; major, Nathaniel
Smith, Woodbury; adjutant, Charles J. Dem-
ing, Litchfield; quartermaster, Bradley D. Lee,
Barkhamsted; chaplain, Jonathan A. Wain-
wright, Torrington; surgeon, Henry Plumb,
New Milford.
Colonel Wessells, a native of Litchfield, and
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
a brother of General Henry W. Wessells of the
regular army, had been prominent in public af-
fairs before the war, and served for twelve
years as Sheriff. Ill health interfered with his
service with the regiment from the first, and
finally compelled his resignation in September,
1 863. Later he was appointed Provost Marshal
for the Fourth District of Connecticut, and for
many years after the war was active in civil
affairs, being the candidate for State Treasurer
on the Republican ticket in 1868, Quartermas-
ter-General on Governor Andrews' staff, and
member of the General Assembly. He died at
Dover, Delaware, April 4, 1895.
1:12:
WASHINGTON in September, 1862,
while relatively secure from the
easy capture which would have
been possible in the summer of
the previous year, was not in a
situation of such safety as to preclude anxiety,
for Pope had just been beaten at Bull Run and
Lee's army was north of the Potomac in the first
of its memorable invasions of the loyal states.
On the very day of his check at Antietam, Sep-
tember 17th, the Nineteenth Connecticut Vol-
unteers reached the capital, and the next day
moved into the hostile state of Virginia,
bivouacking near Alexandria.
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
In this vicinity the regiment was destined to
remain for many months, and to learn, as far as
was possible without the grim teachings of actual
experience, the business for which it was gath-
ered. At first there was a constant expectation
of orders to join the army in active operations;
the county newspapers for many weeks noted
regularly that the regiment was still near Alex-
andria, "but orders to march are hourly ex-
pected." It was good fortune, however, that
none came, for not a little of the credit of its
later service was due to the proficiency in dis-
cipline and soldierly qualities gained in the
long months now spent in preparation.
The task of giving the necessary military
education to the thousand odd men fresh from
the ordinary routine of rural Connecticut life,
fell upon the shoulders of Lieutenant-Colonel
Kellogg, and by all the testimony available,
most of all by the splendid proof they later
gave, it is clear that it was entrusted to a master
hand. Matters of organization and administra-
tion at first engrossed Colonel Wessells' atten-
[14]
^--Jr
A SKETCH
tion; ill health soon supervened, and later he
was given the command of a brigade. The regi-
ment from its beginning was Kellogg's, and he
received in due course the commission vacated
by its first commander in September, 1863.
A thorough and well-tried soldier himself, he
quickly gained the respect of his command by
his complete competency, and its strong and
admiring affection was not slow in following.
There are men among us to this day for whom
no superlatives are adequate to give expression
to their feelings in regard to him. As the regi-
mental history records of their career "there is
not a scene, a day, nor a memory from Camp
Dutton to Grapevine Point that can be wholly
divested of Kellogg. Like the ancient Eastern
king who suddenly died on the eve of an en-
gagement, and whose remains were bolstered
up in warlike attitude in his chariot, and fol-
lowed by his enthusiastic soldiers to battle and
to victory, so this mighty leader, although fall-
ing in the very first onset, yet went on through
every succeeding march and fight, and won post-
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
humous victories for the regiment which maybe
said to have been born of his loins. Battalion
and company, officer and private, arms and
quarters, camp and drill, command and obe-
dience, honor and duty, esprit and excellence,
every moral and material belonging of the regi-
ment, bore the impress of his genius. In the
eyes of civilians. Colonel Kellogg was nothing
but a horrid, strutting, shaggy monster. But
request any one of the survivors of the Nine-
teenth Infantry or the Second Artillery to name
the most perfect soldier he ever saw, and this will
surely be the man. Or ask him to conjure up the
ideal soldier of his imagination, still the same
figure, complete in feature, gesture, gauntlet,
saber, boot, spur, observant eye and command-
ing voice, will stalk with majestic port upon the
mental vision. He seemed the superior of all
superiors, and major-generals shrunk into pigmy
corporals in comparison with him. In every
faculty of body, mind, heart, and soul he was
built after a large pattern. His virtues were
large and his vices were not small. As Lincoln
Ci6:
A SKETCH
said of Seward, he could swear magnificently.
His nature was versatile, and full of contradic-
tions; sometimes exhibiting the tenderest sensi-
bilities and sometimes none at all. Now he
would be in the hospital tent bending with
streaming eyes over the victims of fever, and
kissing the dying Corporal Webster, and an
hour later would find him down at the guard
house, prying open the jaws of a refractory sol-
dier with a bayonet in order to insert a gag; or
in anger drilling a battalion, for the fault of a
single man, to the last point of endurance; or
shamefully abusing the most honorable and
faithful officers in the regiment. 'In rage, deaf
as the sea, hasty as fire.' But notwithstanding
his frequent ill treatment of officers and sol-
diers, he had a hold on their affections such as
no other commander ever had, or could have.
The men who were cursing him one day for the
almost intolerable rigors of his discipline, would
in twenty-four hours be throwing up their caps
for him, or subscribing to buy him a new horse,
or petitioning the Governor not to let him be
D73
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
jumped. The man who sat on a sharp-backed
wooden horse in front of the guard house, would
sometimes watch the motions of the Colonel on
drill or parade, until he forgot the pain and dis-
grace of his punishment in admiration of the
man who inflicted it."
It is not hard to understand the hold he
gained, through a personality so striking and
forceful, upon the men of his command; they
were but boys for the most part, in point of fact,
and open to the influence of just such strength,
and perhaps also just such weaknesses, as they
saw in this splendidly virile and genuine, and
very human character.
Colonel Kellogg was a Litchfield County
man, a native of New Hartford, and at this time
about thirty-eight years of age. His education
was not of the schools, but gained from years
of adventurous life as sailor, gold-hunter, and
wanderer. Shortly before the war he had set-
tled in his native state, but he responded to the
call for the national defence among the very
first, and before the organization of the Nine-
A SKETCH
teenth had served as Major of the First Con-
necticut Artillery. He lies buried in Winsted.
For more than a year and a half the regiment
was numbered among the defenders of the capi-
tal, removing after a few months from the im-
mediate neighborhood of Alexandria, and being
stationed among the different forts and redoubts
which formed the line of defence south of the
Potomac.
Important as its service there was, and novel
as it must have been to Litchfield County boys,
it was not marked by incidents of any note, and
furnished nothing to attract attention among
the general and absorbing operations of the war.
It was, still, of vast interest to the people of the
home towns. The county newspapers had many
letters to print in those days from the soldiers
themselves, and from visitors from home, who
in no inconsiderable numbers were journeying
down to look in upon them constantly. There
were of course matters of various nature which
gave rise to complaints of different degrees of
ni93
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
seriousness; there was not unnaturally much
sickness among the men in the early part of
their service ; there were political campaigns at
home, in which the volunteers had and showed
a strong interest; there was a regrettable quar-
rel among the officers in which Lieutenant-Colo-
nel Kellogg was placed in an unfortunate light,
and the termination of which gave the men an
opportunity of showing their feeling for him.
All these matters were well aired in type;
meanwhile the regiment, doing well such
duty as was laid upon it, grew in efficiency for
hard and active service when it should be
called for.
The possibility of a call to action at almost
any minute was seen in April, 1863, when orders
came that the regiment be held ready to march.
Reinforcements were going forward to the Army
of the Potomac, now under Hooker, in large
numbers; but the Nineteenth was finally left in
the Defences. Thus months were passed in the
routine of drill and parade, guard mounting
and target practice, varied by brief and rare fur-
1:203
A SKETCH
loughs, while the lightnings of the mighty
conflict raging so near left them untouched.
"Yet," it is related, "a. good many seemed to be
in all sorts of affliction, and were constantly
complaining because they could not go to the
front. A year later, when the soldiers of the
Nineteenth were staggering along the Pamun-
key, with heavy loads and blistered feet, or
throwing up breastworks with their coffee-pots
all night under fire in front of Petersburg, they
looked back to the Defences of Washington as
to a lost Elysium."
It was in November, 1863, that the War De-
partment orders were issued changing the Nine-
teenth Infantry to a regiment of heavy artillery,
which Governor Buckingham denominated the
Second Connecticut. Artillery drill had for
some time been part of its work, and the general
efficiency and good record of the regiment in all
particulars was responsible for the change,
which was a welcome one, as the artillery was
considered a very desirable branch of the ser-
[21]
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
vice, and the increase in size gave prospects of
speedier promotions.
Recruiting had been necessary almost all the
time to keep the regiment up to the numerical
standard; death and the discharge for disability
had been operating from the first. It was now
needful to fill it up to the artillery standard of
eighteen hundred men, and this was success-
fully accomplished. Officers and men were
despatched to Connecticut to gather recruits,
and their advertisements set forth enticingly
the advantage of joining a command so com-
fortably situated as "this famous regiment" in
the Defences of Washington, where, it was per-
missible to infer, it was permanently stationed,
a belief which had come to be generally held.
The effort, however, was not confined by geo-
graphical limits, and a large part of the men
secured were strangers to Litchfield County.
Before the ist of March, 1864, over eleven
hundred recruits were received, and with the
nucleus of the old regiment quickly formed into
an efficient command.
1:22:]
o
A SKETCH
"This vast body of recruits was made up of
all sorts of men," the history of the regiment
states. "A goodly portion of them were no less
intelligent, patriotic, and honorable than the
'old' Nineteenth — and that is praise enough.
Another portion of them were not exactly the
worst kind of men, but those adventurous and
uneasy varlets who always want to get out of
jail when they are in, and in when they are out;
furloughed sailors, for example, who had en-
listed just for fun, while ashore, with no definite
purpose of remaining in the land service for any
tedious length of time. And, lastly, there were
about three hundred of the most thorough paced
villains that the stews and slums of New York
and Baltimore could furnish — bounty- jumpers,
thieves, and cut-throats, who had deserted from
regiment after regiment in which they had en-
listed under fictitious names and who now pro-
posed to repeat the operation. And they did
repeat it. No less than two hundred and fifty
deserted before the middle of May, very few of
whom were ever retaken and returned to the
1:23]
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
regiment. There were rebels in Alexandria who
furnished deserters with citizens' clothes and
thus their capture became almost impossible."
At first, and perhaps to some extent always,
there was a mental distinction made by the men
between those who had originally enlisted in
the "old Nineteenth," and the large body which
was now joined to that organization, many of
whom had never seen the Litchfield hills. But
there was enough character in the original body
to give its distinct tone to the enlarged regi-
ment; its officers were all of the first enlistment,
and the common sufferings and successes which
soon fell to their lot quickly deprived this dis-
tinction of any invidiousness. The Second Ar-
tillery was always known, and proudly known,
as the Litchfield County Regiment.
12^-2
HERE came to the Second Connecti-
cut Heavy Artillery, on May 17,
1864, the summons which, after
such long immunity, it had almost
ceased to expect.
The preceding two weeks had been among
the most eventful of the war. They had seen
the crossing of the Rapidan by Grant on the
4th, and the terrible battles for days follow-
ing in the Wilderness and at Spottsylvania, de-
pleting the army by such enormous losses as
even this war had hardly seen before. Heavy
reinforcements were demanded and sent for-
ward from all branches of the service; in the
1:25]
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
emergency this artillery regiment was sum-
moned to fight as infantry, and so served until
the end of the conflict, though for a long time
with a hope, which survived many disappoint-
ments, of being assigned to its proper work with
the heavy guns.
It started for the front on May i8th (1864) ,
and on the 20th reached the headquarters
of the Army of the Potomac, and was assigned
to the Second Brigade, First Division, of the
Sixth Corps, now under Major-General Horatio
G. Wright, another leader of Connecticut
origin, who had succeeded to the command of
the Corps on the death a few days before of
Litchfield County's most noted soldier, John
Sedgwick.
The famous series of movements "by the left
flank" was in progress, and the regiment was in
active motion at once. For more than a week
following its arrival at the front it was on the
march practically all the time while Grant
pushed southward. To troops unaccustomed to
anything more arduous than drilling in the De-
[26]
General Sedgwick
A SKETCH
fences at Washington, it was almost beyond the
limits of endurance. At the start, without ex-
perience in campaigning, the men had overbur-
dened themselves with impedimenta which it
was very soon necessary to dispense with. "The
amount of personal effects then thrown away,"
wrote the chaplain. Rev. Winthrop H. Phelps,
"has been estimated by officers who witnessed
and have carefully calculated it, to be from
twenty to thirty thousand dollars. To this
amount must be added the loss to the Govern-
ment in the rations and ammunition left on the
way." On some of the marches days were
passed with scarcely anything to eat, and it is
recorded that raw corn was eagerly gathered,
kernel by kernel, in empty granaries, and eaten
with a relish. Heat, dust, rain, mud, and a rate
of movement which taxed to the utmost the
powers of the strongest, gave to these untried
troops a savage hint of the hardships of cam-
paigning, into which they had been plunged
without any gradual steps of breaking in, and
much more terrible experiences were close at
[27:]
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
hand. Of these there came a slight foretaste in
a skirmish with the enemy on the 24th near
Jericho Ford on the North Anna River, result-
ing in the death of one man and the wounding
of three others, the first of what was soon to be
a portentous list of casualties.
The movements of both armies were bringing
them steadily nearer to Richmond, and but one
chance now remained to achieve the object of
the campaign, the defeat of Lee's army north of
the Chickahominy and away from the strong
defences of the Confederate capital. The
enemy, swinging southward to conform to
Grant's advance, finally reached the important
point of Cold Harbor on May 31st. Cav-
alry was sent forward to dislodge him, and
seized some of the entrenchments near that
place, while both armies were hurried forward
for the inevitable battle. The Sixth Corps, of
which the Second Artillery was part, reached its
position on the extreme left near noon on
June 1st, having marched since midnight, and
[28]
A SKETCH
awaited the placing of other troops before the
charge, which had been ordered to take place at
five o'clock.
It would have been a fearful waiting for
these men could they have known what was in
store for them. But they were drugged, as it
were, with utter fatigue; the almost constant
movement of their two weeks of active service
had left them "so nearly dead with marching
and want of sleep" that they could not notice
or comprehend the significant movements of the
columns of troops about them preparing for
battle, or the artillery which soon opened fire on
both sides; their stupor, it is related, was of a
kind that none can describe. They heard with-
out excitement the earnest instructions of
Colonel Kellogg, who, in pride and anxiety at
this first trial of his beloved command, was
in constant consultation with officers and
men, directing, encouraging, explaining. "He
marked out on the ground," writes one of his
staff, "the shape of the works to be taken, — told
the officers what dispositions to make of the dif-
1:29]
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
ferent battalions, — how the charge was to be
made, — spoke of our reputation as a band-box
regiment, 'Now we are called on to show what
we can do at fighting.' " The brigade com-
mander, General Emory Upton, was also watch-
ing closely this new regiment which had never
been in battle. But all foreboding was spared
most of the men through sheer exhaustion.
At about the appointed time, five in the after-
noon, the regiment was moved in three bat-
talions of four companies each out of the breast-
works where it had lain through the afternoon,
leaving knapsacks behind, stationed for a few
moments among the scanty pine-woods in front,
and then at the word of command started forth
upon its fateful journey, the Colonel in the
lead.
The first battalion, with the colors in the
centre, moved at a double quick across the open
field under a constantly thickening fire, over
the enemy's first line of rifle pits which was
abandoned at its approach, and onward to the
main line of breastworks with a force and im-
A SKETCH
petus which would have carried it over this
like Niagara but for an impassable obstruction.
Says the regimental history, "There had been a
thick growth of pine sprouts and saplings on
this ground, but the rebels had cut them, proba-
bly that very day, and had arranged them so as
to form a very effective abatis, — thereby clear-
ing the spot and thus enabling them to see our
movements. Up to this point there had been
no firing sufficient to confuse or check the bat-
talion, but here the rebel musketry opened. A
sheet of flame, sudden as lightning, red as blood,
and so near that it seemed to singe the men's
faces, burst along the rebel breastwork, and the
ground and trees close behind our line was
ploughed and riddled with a thousand balls
that just missed the heads of the men. The
battalion dropped flat on the ground, and the
second volley, like the first, nearly all went
over. Several men were struck, but not a large
number. It is more than probable that if there
had been no other than this front fire, the rebel
breastworks would have been ours, notwith-
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
standing the pine boughs. But at that moment
a long line of rebels on our left, having nothing
in their own front to engage their attention, and
having unobstructed range on the battalion,
opened a fire which no human valor could
withstand, and which no pen can adequately de-
scribe. It was the work of almost a single min-
ute. The air was filled with sulphurous smoke,
and the shrieks and howls of more than two hun-
dred and fifty mangled men rose above the yells
of triumphant rebels and the roar of their mus-
ketry. 'About face,' shouted Colonel Kellogg,
but it was his last command. He had already
been struck in the arm, and the words had
scarcely passed his lips when another shot
pierced his head, and he fell dead upon the in-
terlacing pine boughs. Wild and blind with
wounds, bruises, noise, smoke, and conflicting
orders, the men staggered in every direction,
some of them falling upon the very top of the
rebel parapet, where they were completely rid-
dled with bullets, — others wandering off into
the woods on the right and front, to find their
C32]
A SKETCH
way to death by starvation at Anderson ville, or
never to be heard of again."
The second battalion had advanced at an in-
terval of about seventy-five yards after the
first, and the third had followed in turn, but
they were ordered by General Upton to lie
down as they approached the entrenchments.
They could not fire without injury to the line in
front, and could only hold their dangerous and
trying position in readiness to support their
comrades ahead, protecting themselves as they
could from the fire that seemed like leaden hail.
There was no suggestion of retreat at any point
and several hundred of the enemy, taking advan-
tage of a lull in the firing, streamed over the
breastworks and gave themselves up, but
through a misunderstanding of the case the
credit of their capture was given to other regi-
ments, though clearly due to this.
The history continues: "The lines now be-
came very much mixed. Those of the first bat-
talion who were not killed or wounded gradu-
ally crawled or worked back; wounded men
[333
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
were carried through to the rear; and the woods
began to grow dark, either with night or smoke
or both. The companies were formed and
brought up to the breastworks one by one, and
the line extended toward the left. The enemy
soon vacated the breastwork in our immediate
front, and crept off through the darkness."
Throughout the terrible night they held their
ground, keeping up a constant fire to prevent
an attempt by the enemy to reoccupy the line,
until they were relieved in the early morning by
other troops ; they had secured a position which
it was indispensable to hold, and the line thus
gained remained the regiment's front during its
stay at Cold Harbor. Until June 12th the posi-
tion was kept confronting the enemy, whose
line was parallel and close before it, while daily
additions were made to the list of casualties as
they labored in strengthening the protective
works.
The official report of General Upton reads in
part as follows: "The Second Connecticut, anx-
ious to prove its courage, moved to the assault
[34]
A SKETCH
in beautiful order. Crossing an open field it
entered a pine-wood, passed down a gentle de-
clivity and up a slight ascent. Here the charge
was checked. For seventy feet in front of the
works the trees had been felled, interlocking
with each other and barring all further advance.
Two paths several yards apart, and wide
enough for four men to march abreast, led
through the obstruction. Up these to the foot
of the works the brave men rushed but were
swept away by a converging fire. Unable to
carry the intrenchments, I directed the men
to lie down and not return the fire. Opposite
the right the works were carried. The regi-
ment was marched to the point gained and,
moving to the left, captured the point first at-
tacked. In this position without support on
either flank the Second Connecticut fought till
three a.m., when the enemy fell back to a second
line of works."
The regimental history continues: ''On the
morning of the 2nd the wounded who still
remained were got off to the rear, and taken to
1351
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
the Division Hospital some two miles back.
Many of them had lain all night, with shattered
bones, or weak with loss of blood, calling vainly
for help, or water, or death. Some of them lay
in positions so exposed to the enemy's fire that
they could not be reached until the breastworks
had been built up and strengthened at certain
points, nor even then without much ingenuity
and much danger; but at length they were all
removed. Where it could be done with safety,
the dead were buried during the day. Most of
the bodies, however, could not be reached until
night, and were then gathered and buried under
cover of the darkness."
The regiment's part in the charge of June 3rd,
the disastrous movement of the whole Union
line against the Confederate works, which
Grant admitted never should have been made,
was attended with casualties which by com-
parison with the slaughter of the 1st seemed
inconsiderable. There were, in fact, losses in
killed and wounded on almost all of the twelve
days of its stay at Cold Harbor, but the fatal
1:36]
A SKETCH
1st of June greatly overshadowed the remain-
ing time, and that first action was indeed incom-
parably the most severe the Second Connecticut
ever saw. Its loss in killed and wounded, in
fact, is said to have been greater than that of
any other Connecticut regiment in any single
battle.
The reputation of a fighting regiment, which
its fallen leader had predicted, was amply
earned by that unfaltering advance against in-
trenchments manned by Lee's veterans, and
that tenacious defence of the position gained,
but the cost was appallingly great. The record
of Cold Harbor, of which all but a very small
proportion was incurred on June 1st, is given
as follows : Killed or died of wounds, one hun-
dred and twenty-one; wounded, but not mor-
tally, one hundred and ninety; missing, fifteen;
prisoners, three.
General Martin T. McMahon, writing of
this battle in "The Century's" series of war
papers, says : "I remember at one point a mute
and pathetic evidence of sterling valor. The
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery, a new
regiment eighteen hundred strong, had joined
us but a few days before the battle. Its uni-
form was bright and fresh; therefore its dead
were easily distinguished where they lay. They
marked in a dotted line an obtuse angle, cover-
ing a wide front, with its apex toward the
enemy, and there upon his face, still in death,
with his head to the works, lay the Colonel, the
brave and genial Colonel Elisha S. Kellogg."
Such was their first trial in battle.
CsS]
IMMEDIATELY after receiving news
of the action of June 1st, Gov-
ernor Buckingham had sent a com-
mission as colonel to Lieutenant-
Colonel James Hubbard. He,
however, was unwilling to assume the responsi-
bility of the command; this had been his first
battle, and he "drew the hasty inference that
all the fighting was likely to consist of a similar
walking into the jaws of hell. He afterwards
found that this was a mistake."
Upon General Upton's advice, therefore,
the officers recommended to the Governor the
appointment of Ranald S. Mackenzie, then a
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
captain of engineers on duty at headquarters,
and this recommendation being favorably en-
dorsed by superior officers up to the Lieutenant-
General, was accepted, and Colonel Mackenzie
took command on June 6th.
Of the man who was now to lead the regi-
ment. Grant in his Memoirs writes twenty years
later the following unqualified judgment: "I
regarded Mackenzie as the most promising
young officer in the army. Graduating at West
Point as he did during the second year of the
war, he had won his way up to the command of
a corps before its close. This he did upon his
own merit and without influence." Such a
statement from such a quarter is enough to show
that once more the Second Connecticut was to
be commanded by a soldier of more than ordi-
nary qualities, a fact which was not long in
developing.
Colonel Mackenzie's active connection with
the regiment lasted only some four months, but
they were months of great activity and afforded
such occasions for proof of his abilities that his
C40]
A SKETCH
speedy promotion was inevitable. He never
achieved the general popularity with his men
that had come to his predecessor, nor cared to,
but he did gain quite as thoroughly their re-
spect through his mastership of the business in
hand. It was not long after he assumed com-
mand that, as the regimental history says, the
men ''began to grieve anew over the loss of
Kellogg. That commander had chastised us
with whips, but this one dealt in scorpions. By
the time we reached the Shenandoah Valley, he
had so far developed as to be a far greater ter-
ror, to both officers and men, than Early's grape
and canister. He was a Perpetual Punisher,
and the Second Connecticut while under him
was always a punished regiment. There is a
regimental tradition to the effect that a well-
defined purpose existed among the men, prior
to the battle of Winchester, to dispose of this
commanding scourge during the first fight that
occurred. If he had known it, it would only
have excited his contempt, for he cared not a
copper for the good will of any except his mili-
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
tary superiors, and certainly feared no man of
woman born, on either side of the lines. But
the purpose, if any existed, quailed and failed
before his audacious pluck on that bloody day.
He seemed to court destruction all day long.
With his hat aloft on the point of his saber he
galloped over forty-acre fields, through a per-
fect hailstorm of rebel lead and iron, with as
much impunity as though he had been a ghost.
The men hated him with the hate of hell, but
they could not draw bead on so brave a man as
that. Henceforth they firmly believed he bore
a charmed life."
Colonel Mackenzie's advancement was bril-
liantly rapid, as Grant states, and at the time
of Lee's surrender he was in command of a
corps of cavalry, which had shortly before taken
an important part in the battle of Five Forks
under his leadership.
When the war ended he became colonel of
the Twenty-fourth Infantry in the regular
army, and later received a cavalry command,
gaining much distinction by his services in the
[42D
A SKETCH
Indian campaigns in the West and on the Mexi-
can border. He was made brigadier-general in
1882, shortly after placed on the retired list,
and died at Governor's Island in 1889.
The unsuccessful assault on Lee's works at
Cold Harbor marked the end of the first part
of Grant's campaign. The next move was to
swing the army southward to the line of the
James River and prepare to move upon Rich-
mond and its defences from that side. This
change of base was one of General Grant's
finest achievements, admirably planned, and
so skilfully executed that for three days Lee
remained in total ignorance of what his adver-
sary was doing. The Second Connecticut with-
drew from its position on June 12th, late at
night, reached the river on the 16th, and,
moving up it in transports, was disembarked
and sent toward Petersburg, to a point on the
left wing of the army. It reached position
on the night of the 19th and entrenched.
The usual occurrences of such marches as at-
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
tended this change of scene were varied for the
men, as the regimental history suggestively re-
lates, by a notable circumstance — a bath in the
river. "It was the only luxury we had had for
weeks. It was a goodly sight to see half a dozen
regiments disporting themselves in the tepid
waters of the James. But no reader can possi-
bly understand what enjoyment it afforded, un-
less he has slept on the ground for fourteen days
without undressing, and been compelled to
walk, cook, and live on all fours, lest a perpen-
dicular assertion of his manhood should in-
stantly convert it into clay."
The operations against Petersburg had been
going on for some time when the regiment ar-
rived, and for two days it lay in the rifle pits
it had dug under continual fire, with frequent
resulting casualties. It was "the most intoler-
able position the regiment was ever required to
hold. We had seen a deadlier spot at Cold
Harbor, and others awaited us in the future;
but they were agonies that did not last. Here,
however, we had to stay, hour after hour, from
C44]
A SKETCH
before dawn until after dark, and that, too,
where we could not move a rod without extreme
danger. The enemy's line was parallel with
ours, just across the wheat field; then they had
numerous sharpshooters, who were familiar with
every acre of the ground, perched in tall trees
on both our flanks; then they had artillery
posted everywhere. No man could cast his eyes
over the parapet, or expose himself ten feet in
the rear of the trench without drawing fire.
And yet they did thus expose themselves; for
where there are even chances of being missed
or hit, soldiers will take the chances rather than
lie still and suffer from thirst, supineness, and
want of all things. There was no getting to the
rear until zig-zag passages were dug, and then
the wounded were borne off. Our occupation
continued during the night and the next day,
the regiment being divided into two reliefs, the
one off duty lying a little to the rear, in a corn-
field near Harrison's house. But it was a ques-
tion whether 'off' or 'on' duty was the more dan-
gerous."
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
On the 2 1st, relieved from this post, the
regiment was moved to a new position further
southwest and about the same distance from
the city of Petersburg, which lay in plain
view and whose city clocks could be heard dis-
tinctly. The Sixth Corps was engaged in an
operation having the purpose of breaking Lee's
communications with the South by the line of
the Weldon Railroad, and in the course of this
the Second Connecticut took part in a "sharp
skirmish" with Hill's Division, on June 22nd,
an affair which to other experiences would be
notable as a battle of some proportions. The
desired result was not gained; the attempt on
Petersburg, which if successful might have has-
tened the end of the Confederacy by six months,
and which came so near success, was changed to
besieging operations, and for some time Grant's
army lay comparatively quiet. In its four days
in action here, the regiment suffered as follows :
Killed or died of wounds, fifteen; wounded but
not mortally, fifteen; missing, three; prisoners
who died, five.
[46n
Colonel Wessells
VV V . VyV>^ '
,N July 9th came the orders which
took the Second Connecticut for
many months away from its place
before Petersburg, where, after
the activities described, it had set-
tled down to a less exciting course of construct-
ing batteries, forts, and breastworks, and laying
out camps, with days of comparative peace and
comfort notwithstanding several alarms show-
ing the possibility of more arduous service.
The Confederate Army which had been sent
under General Early into the Shenandoah Val-
ley to create a diversion in that quarter, had
unexpectedly appeared on the Potomac in a
C473
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
sudden dash upon Washington, then defended
chiefly by raw levies. Part of the Sixth Corps
had been detached from Grant's army and sent
to protect the capital a few days before ; now the
rest of the corps, including the Second Connec-
ticut, was hurried north and reached Washing-
ton just in time to defeat Early's purpose. He
had planned to storm the city on the I2th,
and with good prospects of success; it was on
that very day at an early hour, that the rein-
forcing troops arrived. They were hurried
through the city to the threatened point, and the
enemy, seeing the well-known corps badge con-
fronting them at Fort Stevens, and recognizing
that the opportunity was gone, promptly re-
treated, after an engagement in which the
Second Connecticut took no active part. This
occasion was notable by reason of the fact that
for the only time during the war President Lin-
coln was under fire, as he watched the progress
of affairs from the parapet of Fort Stevens.
The pursuit which began at once entailed
some hard marching, but the enemy could not
US]
A SKETCH
be brought to a stand. It continued for several
days until the Valley of the Shenandoah was
reached, when Early, as was supposed, having
hurried back to join Lee at Petersburg, the
Sixth Corps was marched again swiftly to the
capital. Here it developed that the authorities
had decided to keep part of the forces sent for
their protection, to man the defences, since
Early's attempt had come so dangerously near
succeeding, and the Second Connecticut was
chosen to remain. On July 25th it was moved
into the same forts it had occupied when called
to the front two months before, and here it
might have remained through the rest of its
term of service, if Early had, as was presumed,
gone back to join Lee at Petersburg. But
it was learned now that he had faced about
when the chase ceased and was again threaten-
ing a northward move. The Sixth Corps was
therefore ordered against his force once
more, the Second Connecticut going from
the anticipated comforts of its prospective
garrison duty with anything but satisfaction.
U9:\
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
"The men who had rolled into those cosy bunks
with the declared intention of 'sleeping a week
steady,' were on their cursing way through Ten-
allytown again in twenty-four hours, marching
with accelerated pace toward Frederick to over-
take the brigade of the red cross, to which they
had so lately bidden an everlasting adieu. Oh,
bitter cup!"
After much marching and counter marching
they found themselves on August 6th at Hall-
town in the Valley. For more than a month the
army, now placed under the command of Gen-
eral Sheridan, was occupied in organizing and
manoeuvering for the projected campaign,
which the presence of the hostile force in that
important quarter necessitated.
Though on a much smaller scale than the oper-
ations in which the regiment had borne a part
since it had been in active service, the impend-
ing action in the Shenandoah Valley was recog-
nized as being of great importance. Grant's
official report, speaking on this point, says : "De-
feat to us would lay open to the enemy the
1:50]
A SKETCH
states of Maryland and Pennsylvania for long
distances before another army could be inter-
posed to check him," and aside from the military
aspect of the matter, the political campaign
then agitating the loyal states made the result
of the struggle here of profound influence.
The campaign's activities began with the bat-
tle of the Opequan, or, as it is perhaps more
often designated, of Winchester. General
Sheridan took advantage of an opportunity for
which he had been patiently waiting by moving
his forces to the attack at daylight on the morn-
ing of September 19th, and before noon the en-
gagement was fierce and general, both assault
and defence being made with equal spirit and
determination; that part of the Sixth Corps
which comprised the Second Connecticut, how-
ever, had taken small part in it, being held in
reserve.
It was about midday that in a counter charge
against the Union center, the enemy found a
weak point at the junction of the Sixth Corps
with the Nineteenth, of which they quickly took
15^1
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
advantage, breaking the line and driving back
the troops on the flanks of both corps in great
disorder. Their successful advance and the
flight of the opposing forces gave such assur-
ances of victory that more than one Confederate
writer says that at this point the battle which
had raged since daylight was won. Jefferson
Davis himself wrote, years after, of the charge :
"This affair occurred about 1 1 a.m., and a splen-
did victory had been gained," — a judgment
which lacked finality. In fact, had the separa-
tion of the wings of Sheridan's army been ac-
complished, as it was threatened, the result
would have been utter disaster; just now, how-
ever, Upton's brigade, of which the Second
Connecticut formed a large part, was brought
up to the point of danger. The charge was
checked, the enemy in turn driven back, and the
Union line re-established.
In the regimental history it is related that the
brigade was pushed forward gradually, "halted
on a spot where the ground was depressed
enough to afford a little protection, and
[52:
A SKETCH
only a little, — for several men were hit while
lying there, as well as others, while get-
ting there. In three minutes the regiment
again advanced, passed over a knoll, lost sev-
eral more men, and halted in another hollow
spot, similar to the first. The enemy's advance
had now been pushed well back, and here a stay
was made of perhaps two hours. Colonel Mac-
kenzie rode slowly back and forth along the rise
of ground in front of this position in a very
reckless manner, in plain sight and easy range
of the enemy, who kept up a fire from a piece of
woods in front, which elicited from him the re-
mark, T guess those fellows will get tired of
firing at me by and by.' But the ground where
the regiment lay was very slightly depressed,
and although the shots missed Mackenzie they
killed and wounded a large number of both
officers and men behind him.
About three o'clock, an advance of the whole
line having been ordered by Sheridan, the regi-
ment charged across the field, Mackenzie riding
some ten rods ahead, holding his hat aloft on
C533
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
the point of his saber. The distance to the
woods was at least a quarter of a mile, and was
traversed under a fire that carried off its victims
at nearly every step. The enemy abandoned
the woods, however, as the regiment approached.
After a short halt it again advanced to a rail
fence which ran along the side of an extensive
field. Here, for the first time during the whole
of this bloody day, did the regiment have orders
to fire, and for ten minutes they had the privi-
lege of pouring an effective fire into the rebels,
who were thick in front. Then a flank move-
ment was made along the fence to the right, fol-
lowed by a direct advance of forty rods into the
field. Here was the deadliest spot of the day.
The enemy's artillery, on a rise of ground in
front, plowed the field with canister and shells,
and tore the ranks in a frightful manner. Major
Rice was struck by a shell, his left arm torn off,
and his body cut almost asunder. Major Skin-
ner was struck on the top of the head by a shell,
knocked nearly a rod with his face to the earth,
and was carried to the rear insensible. General
1:543
A SKETCH
Upton had a good quarter pound of flesh taken
out of his thigh by a shell. Colonel Mackenzie's
horse was cut in two by a solid shot which just
grazed the rider's leg and let him down to the
ground very abruptly. Several other officers were
also struck; and from these instances as well as
from the appended list of casualties some idea
may be gained of the havoc among the enlisted
men at this point. Although the regiment had
been under fire and losing continually from the
middle of the afternoon, until it was now almost
sunset, yet the losses during ten minutes in this
last field were probably equal to those of all the
rest of the day. It was doubtless the spot re-
ferred to by the rebel historian, Pollard, when
he says, 'Early's artillery was fought to the
muzzle of the guns.' Mackenzie gave the order
to move by the left flank and a start was made,
but there was no enduring such a fire, and the
men ran back and lay down. Another attempt
was soon made, and after passing a large oak
tree a sheltered position was secured. The next
move was directly into the enemy's breastwork.
I55l
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
They had just been driven from it by a cavalry
charge from the right, and were in full retreat
through the streets of Winchester, and some of
their abandoned artillery which had done us so
much damage stood yet in position, hissing hot
with action, with their miserable rac-a-bone
horses attached. The brigade, numbering less
than half the muskets it had in the morning, was
now got into shape, and after marching to a
field in the eastern edge of the city, bivouacked
for the night, while the pursuit rolled miles
away up the valley pike." Night alone, wrote
General Wesley Merritt, saved Early's army
from capture.
To the losses of the day the Second Con-
necticut contributed forty-two killed and one
hundred and eight wounded, the proportion of
officers being very large.
Unlike their previous severe engagement at
Cold Harbor, the regiment had the thrilling
consciousness of complete victory to hearten
them after this battle, and, later, when the full
history of the day was learned, the realization
1:56]
A SKETCH
that they had played a part of no little import-
ance in attaining it.
The moment when they were brought into
action was a critical one. General Sheridan, in
his report summing up the operations of the
campaign, said: "At Winchester for a moment
the contest was uncertain, but the gallant at-
tack of General Upton's brigade of the Sixth
Corps restored the line of battle," and of this
brigade the Second Connecticut formed fully
half. Upton's report gave high praise to Colo-
nel Mackenzie, and said: "His regiment on the
right initiated nearly every movement of the
division, and behaved with great steadiness and
gallantry."
The victory itself, with the sequel which fol-
lowed so promptly three days later, had an im-
portance far beyond its purely military value,
through its marked effects upon public sentiment
throughout the country; it brought to one side
jubilant satisfaction, and gave a corresponding
depression to the other, and it elevated Sheri-
dan at once to that high place in popular affec-
[57]
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
tion which he always afterwards held. That it
was "the turning-point of the fortunes of the
war in Virginia," was the verdict of a Confed-
erate officer of high rank, and Nicolay and Hay
in the "Life of Lincoln" describe it as "one of
the most important of the war."
As for the Litchfield County regiment, among
its many proud memories, none surely holds a
higher place than that of the worthy and effec-
tive part it took in this day's work, forming, as
it did, so large a part of the brigade which, in
the words of General Upton's biographer, turned
possible defeat into certain victory.
General Sheridan's method of operation
could hardly be held as dilatory. It would
doubtless have commended itself more highly
to his men if it had been somewhat more so,
when at daylight on the morning after the
splendid success of September 19th they were
ordered in pursuit of Early's army.
The Confederate forces had taken position
on Fisher's Hill, considered the Gibraltar of the
C58]
A SKETCH
Valley, and according to Sheridan, almost im-
pregnable to a direct assault. Two days were
occupied in bringing up troops and making dis-
positions for the attack. The Second Con-
necticut reached its assigned position on the
2 1st near midnight, and found itself "on the
very top of a hill fully as high as Fisher's Hill,
and separated from it by Tumbling River. The
enemy's stronghold was on the top of the oppo-
site hill directly across the stream."
On the 22nd more or less skirmishing took
place all day. A force had been sent round the
enemy's left flank; the attack it delivered late
in the afternoon was a complete surprise to
Early's men, and an advance by the whole
Union line quickly routed them.
To make this charge the regiment moved
down the steep hill, waded the stream, and
moved up the rocky front of the rebel Gibraltar.
How they got up there is a mystery, — for the
ascent of that rocky declivity would now seem
an impossibility to an unburdened traveller,
even though there were no deadly enemy at the
l59l
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
top. But up they went, clinging to rocks and
bushes. The main rebel breastwork, which they
were so confident of holding, was about fifteen
rods from the top of the bluff, with brush piled
in front of it. Just as the top was reached the
Eighth Corps struck the enemy on the right, and
their flight was disordered and precipitate. The
Second Connecticut was the first regiment that
reached and planted colors on the works from
the direct front.
They were marching in pursuit all that night
and for three succeeding days, until the chase
was seen to be hopeless and the army faced
northward again. Four killed and nineteen
wounded were added at Fisher's Hill to the
growing record of the Second Connecticut's
losses.
C6o]
Colonel Kellogg
I ^SM \ni\ !■
'UCH complete failure in their cam-
paign had, it was now believed,
eliminated the enemy in the Shen-
andoah Valley. The Sixth Corps
was accordingly ordered back to
Grant's army before Petersburg after a few
days of rest, and was moving toward Washing-
ton on its way when there came a sudden change
of orders.
Early, reinforced and once more ready, was
again in the works he had been driven from at
Fisher's Hill. The corps, recalled to join
the forces of Sheridan, went into camp along
the north bank of Cedar Creek on October 14th,
[613
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
and here there soon took place one of the most
thrilling and dramatic conflicts of the war.
"For the next few days," the history of the
regiment states, "there was much quiet ^nd a
good deal of speculation among the troops as to
what would be the next shift of the scenes. The
enemy was close in front, just as he had been
for weeks preceding the battle of Winchester,
but this attitude which might once have been
called defiance, now seemed to be mere impu-
dence, — and it was the general opinion that
Early did not wish or intend to fight again, but
that he was to be kept there as a standing threat
in order to prevent Sheridan's army from re-
turning to Grant. And yet there was something
mysterious in his conduct. He was known to
be receiving reinforcements, and his signal flags
on Three-top Mountain (just south of Fisher's
Hill) were continually in motion. From the
top of Massanutton Mountain his vedettes
could look down upon the whole Union army,
as one can look down upon New Haven from
East Rock, and there is no doubt that the exact
1:623
A SKETCH
location of every camp, and the position of
every gun and every picket post were thor-
oughly known to him. Nevertheless, it seemed
the most improbable thing in the world that he
could be meditating either an open attack or a
surprise. The position was strong, the creek
and its crossings in possession of our pickets
both along the front and well out on either
flank." But Early himself, being in difficulties
his enemy knew nothing of, says, 'T was com-
pelled to move back for want of provisions and
forage, or attack the enemy in his position with
the hope of driving him from it, and I deter-
mined to attack."
His plan was, like his adversary's at the last
encounter, a surprise around the left flank with
a feint on the right, and it was carried out on
the morning of October 19th with complete suc-
cess. General Sheridan had been called to
Washington a few days before, as no active
operations seemed imminent, and the army lay
feeling quite secure.
Good fortune attended the attacking forces,
[63]
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
and the surprise was perfect. General Merritt
writes: "Crook's (Eighth Corps) camp and after-
wards Emory's (Nineteenth Corps) were at-
tacked in flank and rear, and the men and offi-
cers driven from their beds, many of them not
having time to hurry into their clothes, except
as they retreated, half awake and terror-stricken
from the overpowering numbers of the enemy.
Their own artillery in conjunction with that of
the enemy, was turned on them, and long before
it was light enough for their eyes, unaccus-
tomed to the dim light, to distinguish friend
from foe, they were hurrying to our right and
rear intent only on their safety. Wright's
(Sixth Corps) infantry, which was farther re-
moved from the point of attack, fared somewhat
better, but did not offer more than a spasmodic
resistance." Nevertheless, they made Early
"pay dearly for every foot gained and finally
brought him to a stand," as Nicolay and Hay
record.
The history of the Second Connecticut tells
the story of the day as follows: "Most of the
A SKETCH
regiment were up next morning long before
Reveille and many had begun to cook their
coffee on account of that ominous popping and
cracking which had been going on for half an
hour off to the right. They did not exactly sup-
pose it meant anything, but they had learned
wisdom by many a sudden march on an empty
stomach and did not propose to be caught nap-
ping. The clatter on the right increased. It
began to be the wonder why no orders came.
But suddenly every man seemed to lose interest
in the right, and turned his inquiring eyes and
ears toward the left. Rapid volleys and a
vague tumult told that there was trouble there.
'Fall in I' said Mackenzie. The brigade moved
briskly off toward the east, crossing the track of
other troops and batteries of artillery which
were hurriedly swinging into position, while
ambulances, orderlies, staff officers, camp fol-
lowers, pack horses, cavalrymen, sutler's wagons,
hospital wagons, and six-mule teams of ever)^
description came trundling and galloping pell
mell toward the right and rear and making off
[65]
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
toward Winchester. It was not a hundred rods
from our own camp to the place where we went
into position on a road running north. General
Wright, the temporary commander of the army,
bareheaded, and with blood trickling from his
beard, sat on his horse near by, as if bewildered
or in a brown study. The ground was cleared
in front of the road and sloped off some thirty
rods to a stream, on the opposite side of which it
rose for about an equal distance to a piece of
woods in which the advance rebel line had al-
ready taken position. The newly risen sun,
huge and bloody, was on their side in more
senses than one. Our line faced directly to the
east and we could see nothing but that enormous
disk, rising out of the fog, while they could see
every man in our line and could take good aim.
The battalion lay down, and part of the men
began to hre, but the shape of the ground af-
forded little protection and large numbers were
killed and wounded. Four fifths of our loss for
the entire day occurred during the time we lay
here,— which could not have been over five min-
1:663
A SKETCH
utes, — by the end of which time the Second
Connecticut found itself in an isolated position
not unlike that at Cold Harbor. The fog had
now thinned away somewhat and a firm rebel
line with colors full high advanced came rolling
over the knoll just in front of our left not more
than three hundred yards distant. 'Rise up, —
Retreat,' said Mackenzie, — and the battalion
began to move back.
For a little distance the retreat was made in
very good order, but it soon degenerated into a
rout. Men from a score of regiments were
mixed up in flight, and the whole corps was
scattered over acres and acres with no more or-
ganization than a herd of buffaloes. Some of
the wounded were carried for a distance by their
comrades, who were at length compelled to
leave them to their fate in order to escape being
shot. About a mile from the place where the
retreat commenced there was a road running
directly across the valley. Here the troops were
rallied and a slight defence of rails thrown up.
The regimental and brigade flags were set up as
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
beacons to direct each man how to steer through
the mob and in a very few minutes there was an
effective line of battle established. A few
round shot ricochetted overhead, making about
an eighth of a mile at a jump, and a few grape
were dropped into a ditch just behind our line,
quickly clearing out some soldiers who had
crawled in there, but this was the extent of the
pursuit. The whole brigade (and a very small
brigade it was) was deployed as skirmishers
under Colonel Olcott of the One Hundred and
Twenty-first New York. Three lines of skir-
mishers were formed and each in turn consti-
tuted the first line while the other two passed
through and halted, and so the retreat was con-
tinued for about three miles until a halt was
made upon high ground, from which we could
plainly see the Johnnies sauntering around on
the very ground where we had slept."
Once more could Early claim the credit of a
victory of which at night he was to find himself
again deprived. Sheridan's famous ride, his
meeting and turning of the tide of fugitives, is
[68:
A SKETCH
the feature of the day's occurrences which will
always live in the popular memory. It is a sig-
nificant hint of the scale of such a battlefield
to know that the men of the Second Connecticut
had no visual perception of his presence that
day, though they heard the cheering occasioned
by his appearance in other parts of the scene,
and in his report there is mention of a meet-
ing with Colonel Mackenzie, whom he tried
to persuade to go to the rear on account of his
wounds.
The Confederate belief in their victory was
not unreasonable, but it was now to suffer an
astonishing upset. Weary and demoralized
with success, they were entirely unprepared for
the vigor of their opponents, who after repul-
sing their last assault, quickly reformed the lines
and prepared for a general advance. Sheridan
writes: "This attack was brilliantly made, and
as the enemy was protected by rail breastworks
and at some portions of his line by stone fences,
his resistance was very determined."
The history of the Second Connecticut gives
1:69]
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
a detailed account of its movement, first against
a stone wall in front which after some opposi-
tion was abandoned by the enemy, who then
"attempted to rally behind another fence a little
further back, but after a moment or two gave it
up and 'retired.' Not only in front of our regi-
ment, but all along as far as the eye could reach,
both to the right and left, were they flying over
the uneven country in precisely the same kind
of disorder that we had exhibited in the morn-
ing. The shouts and screams of victory mingled
with the roar of the firing, and never was heard
'so musical a discord, such sweet thunder.' The
sight of so many rebel heels made it a very easy
thing to be brave, and the Union troops pressed
on, utterly regardless of the grape and canister
which to the last moment the enemy flung be-
hind him. It would not have been well for them
to have fired too much if they had had ever so
good a chance, for they would have been no
more likely to hit our men than their own, who
were our prisoners and scattered in squads of
twenty, squads of ten, and squads of one, all
A SKETCH
over the vast field. At one time they made a
determined stand along a ridge in front of our
brigade. A breastwork of rails was thrown to-
gether, colors planted, a nucleus made, and
both flanks grew longer and longer with won-
derful rapidity. It was evident that they were
driving back their men to this line without re-
gard to regiment or organization of any kind.
This could be plainly seen from the adjacent
and similar ridge over which we were moving, —
the pursuers being in quite as much disorder (so
far as organizations were concerned) as the pur-
sued. That growing line began to look ugly
and somewhat quenched the ardor of the chase.
It began to be a question in many minds whether
it would not be a point of wisdom 'to survey the
vantage of the ground' before getting much
further. But just as we descended into the in-
tervening hollow, a body of cavalry, not large
but compact, was seen scouring along the fields
to our right and front like a whirlwind directly
toward the left flank of that formidable line on
the hill. When we reached the top there was no
17^
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
enemy there I They had moved on and the cav-
alry after them.
Thus the chase was continued, from posi-
tion to position, for miles and miles, for hours
and hours, until darkness closed in and every
regiment went into camp on the identical
ground it had left in such haste in the morning.
Every man tied his shelter tent to the very same
old stakes, and in half an hour coffee was boil-
ing and salt pork sputtering over thousands of
camp fires. Civil life may furnish better fare
than the army at Cedar Creek had that night,
but not better appetites; for it must be borne in
mind that many had gone into the fight directly
from their beds and had eaten nothing for
twenty-four hours.
Men from every company started out the first
thing after reaching camp to look for our dead
and wounded, many of whom lay not fifty rods
off. The slightly wounded who had not got
away had been taken prisoners and sent at once
toward Richmond — while the severely wounded
had lain all day on the ground near where
1:72]
A SKETCH
they were hit while the tide of battle ebbed
and flowed over them. Some of the mortally
wounded were just able to greet their re-
turning comrades, hear the news of victory,
and send a last message to their friends be-
fore expiring. Corporal Charles M. Burr was
shot above the ankle just after the battalion
had risen up and started to retreat. Both
bones of his leg were shattered and he had
to be left. In a few minutes the rebel battalion
which I have already mentioned came directly
over him in pursuit, and was soon out of his
sight. Then being alone for a short time he
pulled oif the boot from his sound leg, put his
watch and money into it and put it on again.
Next a merciful rebel lieutenant came and tied
a handkerchief around his leg, stanching the
blood. Next came the noble army of stragglers
and bummers with the question, 'Hello, Yank,
have you got any Yankee notions about you?'
and at the same time thrusting their hands into
every pocket. They captured a little money
and small traps, but seeing one boot was spoiled
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
they did not meddle with the other. Next came
wagons, picking up muskets and accoutrements
which lay thick all over the ground. Then came
ambulances and picked up the rebel wounded
but left ours. Then came a citizen of the Con-
federacy asking many questions, and then came
three boys who gave him water. And thus the
day wore along until the middle of the after-
noon when the tide of travel began to turn.
The noble army of stragglers and bummers led
the advance — then the roar of battle grew
nearer and louder and more general, then
came galloping officers and all kinds of wagons,
then a brass twelve-pounder swung round close
to him, unlimbered, fired one shot, and whipped
off again — then came the routed infantry, artil-
lery, and cavalry, all mixed together, all on a
full run, and strewing the ground with muskets
and equipments. Then came the shouting
'boys in blue,' and in a few minutes Pat
Birmingham came up and said: 'Well,
Charley, I 'm glad to find you alive. I did n't
expect it. We 're back again in the old
[743
A SKETCH
camp, and the Johnnies are whipped all to
pieces.' "
The victory was as complete and satisfying
as it was spectacular; the enemy was at last so
thoroughly beaten that a dangerous attitude
could not be taken again. It was a fitting close
for Sheridan's famous campaign in the Shenan-
doah Valley.
To the Second Connecticut the day at Cedar
Creek brought losses nearly as heavy as were
suffered at Winchester just a month before:
thirty-eight killed, ninety-six wounded, and
two missing, besides a large number made pris-
oners, — an entire company having been cap-
tured early in the morning while on picket, — of
whom eleven died in captivity. These losses
were in fact proportionately even larger than
those met with at Cold Harbor, as the hard
service of the preceding months had reduced
the regiment's effective strength to about
twenty-five officers and seven hundred men
present for duty.
l-5l
/r7T7\
ENERAL Sheridan's report on the
Shenandoah campaign gave high
praise to Colonel Mackenzie, who,
as a result of his conduct, received
a promotion and was commis-
sioned brigadier-general in December. His dis-
ability from the two wounds received at Cedar
Creek, however, necessitated his relinquishing
the command of the regiment immediately after
that engagement, and this devolved upon Lieu-
tenant-Colonel James Hubbard; to him in due
course came the colonel's commission, and he
led the regiment throughout the rest of its
career.
Colonel Mackenzie
j-i
A SKETCH
Colonel Hubbard, though born in Salisbury,
had lived in the West before the war, and first
saw service with an Illinois regiment. Return-
ing to Connecticut, he assisted in raising a com-
pany for the Nineteenth, and was mustered in
as its captain. He was steadily promot'^d until
the death of Colonel Kellogg brought him natu-
rally to the command of the regiment; but, as
has been said, his own modest estimate of his
qualifications for this responsibility caused him
to decline the appointment. When it came to
him a second time he accepted, and proved by
his subsequent handling of the regiment a
worthy successor to the remarkably able soldiers
under whom he had served, winning the brevet
rank of brigadier-general in the final campaigns.
His ambition was, a comrade wrote, to do his
full duty without a thought for personal glory;
and he enjoyed in a high degree the respect
and affection of his command. He died in
Washington, where he lived for many
years, on December 21, 1886, and was buried
in Winsted.
[77]
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
The brilliant victories in which the Second
Artillery had borne so worthy a part, and the
re-election of President Lincoln in November
( 1864) , put an end to all anxieties as to danger
in the quarter of the Shenandoah, which before
Sheridan's campaign had been a region of fatal
mischance to the national cause from the begin-
ning of the war. As a consequence the Sixth
Corps was once more ordered to rejoin Grant's
army, and the regiment left the historic valley
on December 1st, arriving on the 5th before
Petersburg, where it was assigned a position
near the place of its skirmish on June 22nd.
"Then it was unbroken forest," says its his-
tory; "now, hundreds of acres were cleared, and
dotted with camps. A corduroy road ran by,
and a telegraph, and Grant's railroad. No
other such railroad was ever seen before, or ever
will be again. It was laid right on top of the
ground, without any attempt at grading, and
you might see the engine and rear car of a long
train, while the middle of the train would be in
a valley, completely out of sight. Having
A SKETCH
reached Parke Station, we moved to a camp near
Battery Number Twenty-seven, and went into
the snug and elegant little log houses just
vacated by the Ninety-fourth New York.
This was a new kind of situation for the 'Second
Heavies.' The idea of being behind perma-
nent and powerful breastworks, defended by
abatis, ditches, and what not, with approaches
so difficult that ten men could hold five hundred
at bay, was so novel, that the men actually felt
as if there must be some mistake, and that they
had got into the wrong place."
For two months no fighting fell to the regi-
ment's lot, for though the Union commanders
and armies were ready and eager to make an
end of the war as soon as possible, little could
be done during the winter. Though this inac-
tivity brought perhaps some relief from the
rigors of army life, the men had numerous re-
minders that they were still in active service.
One of the chief events of this season the his-
tory of the regiment describes as follows: "On
1:793
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
the afternoon of the 9th (December, 1864) , the
First and Third Divisions of the Sixth Corps
were marched to the left, beyond the permanent
lines, and off in the direction of the Weldon
Railroad, to prevent any attack on the Fifth
and Second Corps, now returning from their
expedition. After going for about six miles we
halted for the night, in a piece of woods. It
was bitter cold when we left camp, but soon be-
gan to moderate, then to rain, then to sleet; so
that by the time we halted, everything was cov-
ered with ice, with snow two inches deep on the
ground, and still sifting down through the
pines. It was the work of an hour to get hres
going, — but at last they began to take hold, and
fuel was piled on as though it did not cost any-
thing. Clouds of steam rolled out of the soaked
garments of the men, as they stood huddled
around the roaring, cracking piles, — and the
black night and ghostly woods were lighted up
in a style most wonderful. The storm con-
tinued all night, and many a man waked up
next morning to find his legs firmly packed in
[Son
A SKETCH
new fallen snow. At daylight orders came to
pack up and be ready to move at once; which
was now a difficult order to execute, on account
of many things, especially the shelter tents; —
for they were as rigid as sheet-iron and yet had
to be rolled up and strapped on the knapsacks.
Nevertheless it was not long before the regi-
ment was in motion; and after plodding off for
a mile to the left, a line of battle was formed,
vedettes sent out, trees felled and breastworks
built, and at dinner-time the men were allowed
to build fires and cook breakfast. Then, after
standing until almost night in the snow, which
had now turned to sleet, the column was headed
homeward. Upon arriving, it was discovered
that some of the Jersey Brigade had taken pos-
session of our log snuggeries, and that their
officers had established their heels upon the
mantels in our officers' quarters, and were smok-
ing the pipes of comfort and complacency, as
though they had not a trouble in the world, and
never expected to have. But they soon found
that possession is not nine points of military
C8i]
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
law, by any means. An order from Division
Headquarters soon sent them profanely pack-
ing, — and the Second Heavies occupied."
Though weeks were spent in such compara-
tive comfort and immunity as the present situ-
ation afforded, the men felt as if they were rest-
ing over a volcano which might break into fierce
activity at any moment; and as the winter
passed signs of the renewal of the struggle mul-
tiplied on all sides.
On February 5th (1865) , part of the Second
Connecticut was ordered to move out to support
and protect the flank of the Fifth Corps, which
was engaged near Hatcher's Run, and accord-
ingly left the comforts of the camp and bivou-
acked for the night a few miles away. The history
of the regiment says : "It was bitter cold sleeping
that night — so cold that half the men stood or
sat around fires all night. In the morning the
movement was continued. A little before sun-
down we crossed Hatcher's Run and moved by
the flank directly into a piece of woods, the
Second Brigade under Hubbard leading the
[82:1
A SKETCH
division and the Second Connecticut under
Skinner leading the brigade. Wounded men
were being brought to the rear and the noise
just ahead told of mischief there. Colonel
Hubbard filed to the left at the head of the col-
umn along a slight ridge and about half the
regiment had filed when troops of the Fifth
Corps came running through to the rear and at
the same moment General Wheaton rode up
with 'oblique to the left, oblique to the left,' and
making energetic gestures toward the rise of
ground. The ridge was quickly gained and fire
opened just in time to head off a counter fire
and charge that was already in progress, but be-
tween the 'file left' and the 'left oblique' and
the breaking of our ranks by troops retreating
from in front, and the vines and underbrush
(which were so thick that they unhorsed some
of the staff officers) there was a good deal of con-
fusion, and the line soon fell back about ten
rods, where it was reformed and a vigorous fire
poured — somewhat at random — a little to the
left of our first position. The attempt of the
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
enemy to get in on the left of the Fifth Corps
was frustrated. Our casualties were six
wounded (some of them probably by our own
men) and one missing. The position was occu-
pied that night, and the next day until about
sundown, when the brigade shifted some dis-
tance to the right and again advanced under an
artillery fire to within a short distance of the
rebel batteries and built breastworks. The
rebel picket shots whistled overhead all the time
the breastworks were building, but mostly too
high to hurt anything but the trees. At mid-
night the division moved back to quarters, ar-
riving at sunrise. Having taken a ration of
whiskey which was ordered by Grant or some-
body else in consideration of three nights and
two days on the bare ground in February, to-
gether with some fighting and a good deal of
hard marching and hard work, the men lay
down to sleep as the sun rose up, and did not
rise up until the sun went down."
[843
Colonel Hubbard
HE routine of picket duty, inspec-
tion, alarms, and orders to be in
readiness which came not infre-
quently, continued for another
succession of weeks, varied now
by the constant arrival of deserters from the
enemy, who were coming into the Union lines
singly and in large parties almost daily, and re-
vealing the desperate condition on the other
side. Preparations went on for what all felt
was to be the final campaign; and this opened
for the Second Connecticut on March 29th,
when the famous assault on Fort Stedman was
made by the enemy, Lee's last attempt at offen-
sive operations.
1:85]
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
This position, which was on the eastern side
of the city of Petersburg, was gallantly attacked
and captured in the early morning; troops were
at once called from all parts of the Union line
and hurried to the point of action, but the fort
was retaken before the Second Connecticut
reached the scene, and the regiment was then
moved to the southwest of the city before Fort
Fisher, a general assault of the whole extensive
line having been ordered by Grant to develop
the weakness that Lee must have been obliged
to make somewhere to carry out his plan against
Fort Stedman. The attack succeeded in gain-
ing and holding a large share of the Confederate
picket line, a matter of great importance.
The Second Connecticut advanced to the
charge late in the afternoon "as steadily as
though on a battalion drill," the regimental his-
tory relates. It captured a line of rifle pits and
kept on "under a combined artillery and musket
fire. The air was blue with the little cast iron
balls from spherical-case shot which shaved the
ground and exploded among the stumps just in
[86:
A SKETCH
rear of the line at intervals of only a few sec-
onds. Twenty of the Second Connecticut were
wounded — seven of them mortally — in reach-
ing, occupying, and abandoning this position,
which, proving entirely untenable, was held
only a few minutes. The line faced about and
moved back under the same mixed fire of
solid shot, spherical case, and musketry, and
halted not far in front of the spot whence it had
first moved forward. Other troops on the right
now engaged the battery and captured the rest
of the picket line, and after half an hour the
brigade again moved forward to a position still
further advanced than the previous one, where
a permanent picket line was established."
The week following this eventful day, which
began with the capture of one of the Union
works, and ended with substantial gains along
their front, saw intense activity on all sides.
The abandonment of Petersburg by Lee was
now plainly imminent, and the preventing of
his army's escape was the paramount object.
The whole vast field of operation about the
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
besieged city became a seething theater of
complicated movement, and the Second Con-
necticut, under frequent orders for immediate
advance, was formed in line at all hours of
the day or night, and excited by a thousand
rumors and orders given and revoked, but it
did not finally leave its quarters during this
time.
On April ist, Sheridan won his notable vic-
tory at Five Forks, and at midnight the regi-
ment was ordered out for a final charge on the
defences so long held against them, which was
to be made early on the 2nd. All was made
ready, the lines formed, and at daylight the
signal gun set the army in motion.
"The advance was over precisely the same
ground as on the 25th of March, and the
firing came from the same battery and breast-
works, although not quite so severe. Lieutenant-
Colonel Skinner and seven enlisted men were
wounded — none of them fatally. There was
but little firing on our side, but with bayonets
fixed the boys went in, — not in a very mathe-
[88]
A SKETCH
matical right line, but strongly and surely, — on,
on, until the first line was carried. Then, in-
vigorated and greatly encouraged by success,
they pressed on — the opposing fire slackening
every minute, — on, on, through the abatis and
ditch, up the steep bank, over the parapet into
the rebel camp that had but just been deserted.
Then and there the long tried and ever
faithful soldiers of the Republic saw day-
light — and such a shout as tore the concave
of that morning sky it were worth dying to
hear." The same jubilant success was attend-
ing the whole army, though not without
sharp resistance on the part of the enemy in
places.
Throughout the day advances were made and
the works so long besieged were occupied all
over the vast field, and at night the men "lay
down in muddy trenches, among the dying and
the dead, under a most murderous fire of sharp-
shooters. There had been charges and counter
charges, — but our troops held all they had
gained. At length the hot day gave place to
1:89]
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
chilly night, and the extreme change brought
much suffering. The men had flung away what-
ever was fling-away-able during the charge of
the morning and the subsequent hot march — as
men always will, under like circumstances —
and now they found themselves blanketless,
stockingless, overcoatless, — in cold and damp
trenches, and compelled by the steady firing to
lie still, or adopt a horizontal, crawling mode of
locomotion, which did not admit of speed
enough to quicken the circulation of the blood.
Some took clothing from the dead and wrapped
themselves in it; others, who were fortunate
enough to procure spades, dug gopher holes, and
burrowed. At daylight the Sixty-fifth New
York clambered over the huge earthwork, took
possession of Fort Hell, opened a picket fire and
fired one of the guns in the fort, eliciting no
reply. Just then a huge fire in the direction of
the city, followed by several explosions, con-
vinced our side that Lee's army had indeed left.
The regiment was hastily got together, — ninety
muskets being all that could be produced, — and
C9°]
A SKETCH
sent out on picket. The picket line advanced
and meeting with no resistance pushed on into
the city. What regiment was first to enter the
city is and probably ever will be a disputed
question. The Second Connecticut claims to
have been in first, but Colonel Hubbard had or-
dered the colors to remain behind when the regi-
ment went out on the skirmish line, consequently
the stars and stripes that first floated over cap-
tured Petersburg belonged to some other regi-
ment. Colonel Hubbard was, however, made
Provost-Marshal of the city, and for a brief
while dispensed government and law in that
capacity."
Petersburg, however, now that it was aban-
doned by the enemy, had lost the importance it
had so long possessed, and all energies were
given to preventing the escape of its late de-
fenders. Before the end of the day (April 3d)
the regiment, with the rest of the Sixth Corps,
had turned westward and joined the pursuit.
The chase was stern and the marches rapid, but
far less wearing to these victorious veterans,
19^1
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
filled with the consciousness of success, than
those that had initiated their campaigning less
than a year before. On April 6th the regiment,
after an all day march, came up with the enemy
in position at Sailor's Creek, and went into the
last engagement of its career. It was a charge
under a hot fire, sharp and decisive, which
quickly changed to a pursuit of the fleeing
enemy, kept up until the bivouack at ten
o'clock. The Second Connecticut captured the
headquarters train of General Mahone, a battle
flag, and many prisoners, and ended the tale of
its losses with three men killed and six
wounded.
The chase was taken up next morning (April
7th) , and the regiment had reached a point close
to Appomattox Court House, when on April 9th
Lee met Grant and surrendered what remained
of his army, at that historic place.
To imagine all that this meant to the men in
arms is far easier than to attempt its descrip-
tion. They saw at last the end arriving of all
[92]
A SKETCH
the privation and suffering they had volun-
teered to undergo ; they saw the triumph of the
Union they had risen to defend to the uttermost
extremity a proven fact. The whole continent
vibrated with the deepest feeling at the news of
it, but they, better than any others, knew in the
fullest degree its immense significance.
l93'2
MMEDiATELY after the surrender
of the Army of Northern Virginia,
the Sixth Corps was moved to
Burkesville, some distance from
Appomattox in the direction of
Richmond, and there it remained for about
ten days awaiting events. On April 22nd
it was ordered southward to Danville, with
a view to joining Sherman's army then
confronting Johnston in North Carolina,
a movement which again necessitated some
fatiguing marches, the one hundred and five
miles being covered in less than five days.
News was received, however, that Johnston had
followed the example of Lee and surrendered,
1:94:
A SKETCH
and the corps thereupon faced about once more.
On its leisurely progress to the north it was
joined by crowds of the newly freed negroes,
who attached themselves to every regiment in
droves, and the lately hostile inhabitants came
also at every stopping place, 'with baskets and
two-wheeled carts" for supplies to relieve their
dire necessities.
Near Richmond the regiment remained sev-
eral days, and the men were allowed passes to
visit the late Confederate capital, so long the
goal of their strenuous efforts. "The burnt dis-
trict was still smoking with the remains of the
great fire of April 2nd, and the city was full of
officers and soldiers of the ex-Confederate army.
The blue and the gray mingled on the streets and
public squares, and were seen side by side in the
Sabbath congregations. The war was over."
The consciousness of this last great fact was
now becoming insistent in the minds of these
citizen soldiers. The great purpose for which
they had offered themselves was carried out, and
their eagerness to have done with all the circum-
1951
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
stances of military life was increasingly strong,
and grew so intense as to render the final weeks
of their term of service extremely trying.
The tremendous task of disbanding the armies
of the Union was occupying the entire energies
of the War Department, but to the men it
seemed as if their longed for turn would never
come. Back in the well-known fortifications
around Washington they waited, taking part in
the Grand Review on June 8th, in all the misery
of full dress, and in a temper that would have
carried them against the thousands of acclaim-
ing spectators with savage joy, had it been a
host of enemies in arms.
But their turn came at last, and on July 7th,
one hundred and eighty-three men, all that were
left of the original enlisted men of the "old
Nineteenth," were mustered out; two days later
they departed for New Haven and were wel-
comed there, like all the returning troops, with
patriotic rejoicing.
The remainder of the regiment, some four
hundred in number, was mustered out in its
C96]
A SKETCH
turn on August i8th, reached New Haven on
the 20th, and "passed up Chapel Street amid
welcoming crowds of people, the clangor of
bells, and a shower of rockets and red lights that
made the field-and-staif horses prance with the
belief that battle had come again. After partak-
ing of a bounteous entertainment prepared in
the basement of the State House, the regiment
proceeded to Grapevine Point, where, on the 5th
of September, they received their pay and dis-
charge, and the Second ConnecticutHeavy Artil-
lery vanishedfromsightandpassedintoHistory."
In Litchfield County the return of the various
contingents to their homes was made the occa-
sion of great rejoicing. Chief among these cele-
brations was a grand reception at the county
seat on August 1st, when the first detachment
to be discharged had arrived; they were feted
with dinner and speeches, illuminations and a
triumphal arch. There were also other organ-
ized demonstrations in other towns, and every-
where the strongest manifestations of pride in
C973
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
these warrior sons of the county, and joy at their
return.
But all who went had not returned. The ter-
rible significance of the cold and formal col-
umns and tables of the regiment's casualties was
felt in every town, and to their tale was added
in succeeding years a long list of the many who
had indeed come back, but broken with wounds
and disease, and just as truly devoted to death
through their service as those who fell upon the
field of battle.
What the Second Connecticut suffered is
shown, so far as official statistics go, in the
tables published by the Adjutant-General of
the state, as follows :
Killed 147
Missing in action, probably killed ... 11
Fatally wounded 95
Wounded 427
Captured 72
Died in prison 21
Died of disease or accident 1 5'4
Discharged for disability 285
Unaccounted for at muster out • • • • 35
1:98:
Monument at ArIine;ton
A SKETCH
The officers of the regiment as mustered out
were: Colonel, James Hubbard, Salisbury;
lieutenant-colonel, Jeffrey Skinner, Winches-
ter; majors, Edward W. Jones, New Hartford;
Augustus H. Fenn, Plymouth; Chester D.
Cleveland, Barkhamsted; adjutant, Theodore
F. Vaill, Litchfield; quartermaster, Edward C.
Huxley, Goshen; surgeon, Henry Plumb, New
Milford; assistant surgeons, Robert G. Haz-
zard. New Haven; Judson B. Andrews, New
Haven; chaplain, Winthrop H. Phelps, Bark-
hamsted.
[99:1
«HE preceding pages have outlined
^ the career of the Second Connec-
ticut Heavy Artillery, and have
narrated some of the more mem-
orable events of its history.
Enough has been told of what it did to furnish
grounds for deducing what it was; but to deal
with the regiment on the personal side is hardly
possible within the limits of such a sketch as
this, though it is a matter that cannot be entirely
passed by. It need not be said that there is
abundant human interest attaching as a matter
of course to such men as were in the aggregate
the subjects of so fine a record.
Any body of men — a college class, a legisla-
A SKETCH
ture, a regiment — is in character what its com-
ponent members make it ; in this case there was
the material, which, furnished with worthy
leadership — and it unquestionably had that —
made up the organization whose not uneventful
existence has been described. That they were
better men, or worse, braver men, or more patri-
otic, than their descendants and successors
would prove under similar conditions, or than
the hundreds of thousands of their contempo-
raries who devoted themselves to the same ser-
vice, is not to be believed; yet to have passed
through such experiences as have been re-
counted, which became for them for a time the
commonplaces of every-day life, is enough to
place them apart from ordinary men in the eyes
of our peace knowing generation. In fact, to
have passed the tests of so fierce a course of edu-
cation gives them a title to a place thus apart.
The university man of to-day, as the burden
of the baccalaureate sermons so frequently tes-
tifies, is consigned to a special place of responsi-
bility in life because of his training; these men
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
surely earned one of special honor by reason of
theirs, which was, too, not like the other, prepa-
ration alone, but also fulfilment. The realiza-
tion of how typical it all was of that generation
and that time, brings the clearest understanding
of the real scope of the Civil War.
To the members of the Litchfield County Uni-
versity Club it is perhaps a point of interest to
take brief notice of those names on the regi-
mental rolls which would probably have been
found upon its list of members had the organi-
zation been in existence in that earlier time. A
number of the officers and men were college
graduates when they enlisted, and others gained
degrees after the war ended ; the list which fol-
lows is, however, necessarily incomplete; in
fact, an absolutely correct list is no doubt hope-
lessly impossible.
Major James Q. Rice, who was killed at Win-
chester, was a member of the class of 1850 at
Wesleyan, and received from that institution
the degree of Master of Arts in 1855. At the
D023
A SKETCH
time of the regiment's formation he was con-
ducting an academy in Goshen, and was en-
listed as captain of a company which he had
been active in recruiting.
Lieutenant-Colonel Nathaniel Smith of
Woodbury entered the Yale Law School in the
class of 1853, but did not graduate. Ill health
forced him to relinquish his commission early
in 1864, and until his death in 1877 he was a
leading citizen of the county.
Judge Augustus H. Fenn, Major and Brevet-
Colonel, came back from the war, having lost
an arm at Cedar Creek, to take a course in the
Law School at Harvard, and Yale made him a
Master of Arts in 1889. His prominence for
many years in public life and as judge in the
highest courts in the state is well known. At
the time of his death in 1897, he was a lecturer
in the Yale Law School, and member of the
Supreme Court of Errors.
Rev. James Deane, Captain and Brevet-
Major, was a graduate of Williams in the class
of 1857. He was pastor of the Congregational
[1033
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
church at East Canaan when the regiment was
organized, and was one of its recruiting officers.
Adjutant Theodore F. Vaill, the historian of
the regiment, was a student before the war at
Union College, but did not graduate.
Captain George S. Williams, of New Mil-
ford, was a member of the class of 1852 at Yale
for a time, and received a degree from Trinity
in 1855.
Surgeon Henry Plumb, and Assistant-Sur-
geons Robert G. Hazzard and John W. Lawton
were all graduates of the Yale Medical School,
in the classes of 1861, 1862, and 1859. Assist-
ant-Surgeon Judson B. Andrews graduated at
Yale in 1855. He was captain in a New York
regiment in the early part of the war, and be-
came afterward superintendent of the Buffalo
State Hospital, and a recognized authority on
insanity before his death in 1894.
Chaplain Jonathan A. Wainwright gradu-
ated at the University of Vermont in 1846, and
after the war was for some years rector of St.
John's Church in Salisbury. He was later con-
[104]
A SKETCH
nected with a church college in Missouri, where
he died in 1898.
Captain William H. Lewis, Jr., studied after
the war at the Berkeley Divinity School, and
has been for many years rector of St. John's
Church in Bridgeport.
Lieutenant and Brevet-Captain Lewis W.
Munger, graduating at Brown in 1869 and later
from the Crozier Theological Seminary, entered
the ministry of the Baptist church.
Corporal Francis J. Young entered the Yale
Medical School before the war, and returned
after its close to take his degree in 1866.
Hospital Steward James J. Averill also grad-
uated at the Yale Medical School after the war.
Sergeant Theodore C. Glazier was a graduate
of Trinity in the class of i860, and was a tutor
there when he enlisted. He was later made
colonel of a colored regiment, and served with
credit in that capacity.
Corporal Edward C. Hopson, a graduate of
Trinity in 1864, was killed at Cedar Creek.
Sergeant Garwood R. Merwin, who had been
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
a member of the class of 1864 at Yale, died at
Alexandria in 1863.
Sergeant Romulus C. Loveridge, who had
been entered in the class of 1865 at Yale, re-
ceived a commission in a colored regiment.
Colonel Mackenzie graduated at West Point
in 1862, but he was never a resident of the
county, or of Connecticut, and his only connec-
tion with either was through his commission
from Governor Buckingham.
There are not a few other names upon the
rolls of the regiment which upon more thorough
investigation than has been possible in the
present case would certainly be added to the
list. A complete history of the organization
would also give a large place to the association
of its veterans formed shortly after the war,
whose frequent gatherings have more than a
superficial likeness to the reunions of college
classes. Memorable among these meetings was
the one held on October 21, 1896, the occasion
being the dedication of the regiment's monu-
ment in the National Cemetery at Arlington,
[106:
A SKETCH
with a pilgrimage also to the scenes of its battles
and marches in the Shenandoah Valley near by.
As a whole, the regiment was a body thor-
oughly representative not only of the army of
which it was a fraction, an army as has been
often said unlike any other the world has
known, but also of the population from which
it was drawn. It was made up of men of almost
all conditions of life and of widely different
ages, though naturally with young men in a
large majority; of mechanics from the Housa-
tonic and Naugatuck valleys, and farmers' boys
from the hills; of men of education and men of
none. Though the large addition to its num-
bers which the increase in size necessitated made
it perhaps somewhat less homogeneous than at
first, it did not greatly alter its essential charac-
teristics.
The records kept by the association referred
to, furnish suggestive revelations as to the
various elements that composed it. The names
of men of every sort and kind are found upon
the rolls. There were veterans of the Mexican
[1073
THE COUNTY REGIMENT
War; there were refugees from the revolution-
ary uprisings in Europe of 1848; there were
some who had served under compulsion in the
armies of the South; there were men whose ob-
viously fictitious names concealed stories which
could be guessed to be extraordinary; there were
names which have been for years among the best
known and most honored in this state ; and there
were those of outcasts and wrecks.
A large part of these men came back after
their service ended to resume the peaceful life
of citizenship, and every town among us has
known some of them ever since among its lead-
ing figures, while some in quarters far distant
have also attained to honors and responsi-
bilities, as the records show. Connecticut has
known for many years no small number of them
as foremost in all lines of activity, and knows
to-day, in official station and in private life,
men of many honors, who count not least among
these the fact that they were enrolled among
the soldiers of the Second Connecticut Heavy
Artillery.
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